Dorothy turned 39 today. She was married to a fellow scientist and husband, Raman Nanda, an Indian by birth. They had an 8-year-old kid named Samuel. Along with her spouse, a widely regarded physicist, she had been working at CERN, which is famous for a giant collaborative experiment on particle accelerators.
She was summoned to an early meeting today.
“No time for celebrations, I guess,” Raman greeted her while she was packing her breakfast.
“You are my celebration!” Dorothy said, leaving a peck on her husband’s cheek. “In any event, I am one short of forty. I am past celebrating any more birthdays,” she told her husband, who was now helping her with her office bag.
It was quarter past seven. She plonked on the sofa in the living room. They were allotted a spacious quarter in Meyrin, an idyllic town in Geneva, which also hosted the headquarters of CERN. Her pick-up was outside. She hugged Raman and went out. She turned around, and their eyes met for one last time. Even from a distance, she could read Raman’s lips. He was saying, “Happy Birthday”.
At CERN, Dorothy was cleared for Level-5 security today. She had a Level-4 clearance otherwise. She was to attend a meeting to discuss an anomaly at the CERN’s lesser-known experiments on quantum teleportation. Scientists were attempting to convert matter into energy and return it to its original state in a series of experiments.
Merlin, the head of the research, a plump, balding guy, had summoned her for the meet. “The Mouse X44. It has disappeared!” He had told her over the phone, both excited and terrified.
She swiped her new card at the steel entrance to the laboratory. A faint shriek landed on her ears the moment she stepped in. Dorothy kept her folder and her mobile phone on the steel table and followed the sound. She opened the hatch of the main lab. She could see the rotund shape of Merlin halfway through a shimmering portal. He was waving his hands frantically. She held onto his right arm and heard his terrified voice, “No, no. I was asking you to stay away.” It was too late. There was no brute pull or jerk. She realized she was breaking down into countless atoms. She was slowly disappearing, one atom at a time.
Merlin and Dorothy woke up in a large atrium of an abandoned building. They saw a man dressed in combat gear rushing past them. “What is this place?” Dorthy asked the man in haste. “Oz!” he replied without turning back.
